Un-betaed

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Time For a Change

Chapter 1    The Realization

If you had told me two years ago that I would leave this town of Llanview broken, scarred and dejected I would have laughed in your face. Not me, not Evangeline Williamson. I am a force to be reckoned with but that has changed.  I must leave and reclaim myself.  It’s not the things that have happened to me that cause me to leave.  It is because I need to find myself again. What does that mean?  I would always ask myself that question when I would hear someone say that.  Find yourself, don’t you know where you are I would smirk.  Now I know exactly what they mean.  I don’t know where I am or who I am anymore. I know the lawyer bit, the daughter bit, the sister and friend bit but I don’t know the ‘me’ bit.  I have to find that again and I can’t do that here with all of these memories and people pulling on me expecting me to react or act in a certain way.  I remember once reading this quote about people seeing you but not really ‘seeing’ you:

‘A person who truly loves you is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believe the smile on your face.’

I keep up appearances that I am fine and that everything is all right but it is not.  I smile so that they don’t worry about me but I need to leave here so that I can freely feel exactly what I feel and not have people hovering over me telling me that it will be all right.  It won’t, not for a while anyway and I need that ‘for a while’ to heal.  I reached out to some former colleagues about possible job opportunities and have received some tremendous offers.  I haven’t told anyone about my plans and probably won’t until I have secured employment and housing in my new location.  I need a clean break from this place.  My departure I will play it off as needing time away to recover and not tell them that I have no intentions of returning.  This is for me.  I will be very selfish in this.  I have accommodated, placated and every other way one can try to make others feel good about themselves that you can think of for the residents of this town and now it is time for Evangeline to take care of Evangeline and that I will do from now on.

After this trial for Hayes Barber regarding the Killing Club Killer case I will make my exit from Llanview.  After having been assaulted in a train station by a man who thought that I should ‘stay in my place’ and tied to a stake and had a fire built at my feet what sane person would want to stay in such a place. I might be young but I’m not stupid.  Some may see my leaving as running away, too bad, I see it as survival and my opinion is the only one that matters.